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On the 2nd of September, the Government of India issued a press release 118 Chinese apps and games. This was the third Chinese app ban done by the GOI after the border tensions between India and China rose to an all-time high. This time however GOI also banned PUBG Mobile along with all the games of Tencent from operating in India. Many other games also got banned including all of Netease games like Cyber Hunter, Creative Destruction, Rules of Survival, and Lifeafter. The press release was issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Government of India.
Government blocks 118 mobile apps which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, Defence of India, Security of State and Public Order: Govt of India
— ANI (@ANI) September 2, 2020
PUBG MOBILE Nordic Map: Livik, PUBG MOBILE LITE, WeChat Work & WeChat reading are among the banned mobile apps. pic.twitter.com/VWrg3WUnO8
PUBG Mobile Ban, Game Removed from Google Playstore and Apple Appstore:
On the night of 2nd September, the game was removed from Indian Apple app store and on the morning of the 3rd of September, the game was removed from Google Playstore. As of now, PUBG mobile India has not issued any statement regarding the ban. Though the game is still working on the devices it had already been installed on. On running PUBG Mobile on the morning of 3rd September the game was running fine in India and showed no notification of the ban.
That being said, there is still some uncertainty among the players if the game will be accessible via a VPN. TikTok was another big Chinese app that was banned in the first Chinese app ban and was not accessible via a VPN. Since all of the Chinese app bans have been done under Section 69A of the Indian IT Act it makes it illegal for these apps to function in India so chances of PUBG mobile and the other banned apps being accessible via a VPN are not very high. It remains unclear if or how Tencent games will respond to the ban. TikTok is already in talks with potential buyers for its India operations.